Braze Or Nickle Rod?

[SE18]

I got this cheap ass HF anvil that I want to add a 1/2" steel plate to. You can see I drilled out and filed the 7/8" hardie hole to match the anvil. So 3 questions.

would the 1/2" be thick enough?

should I use nickle rod? (I've got a heavy duty WWII era Marquette stick welder). Reason nickle is b/c the anvil is die cast

or, could I just use my oxyacy torch and braze it?

If I use the nickle rod, I'm thinking I will need to preheat the entire anvil and plate to around 600F before welding to prvent stress and cracking

If I use the torch, I'm thinking I don't need to preheat.

The thing is, the anvil will be hosting some hot metal and I wonder if the braze might come undone?

(the round hole in the photo will be filled in)

Thanks

 

[joshua43214]

I can't offer any help as to what is stronger than the other.
You will still need to preheat with a braze, just wave the flame over it until it is hot.
I doubt if the braze would come undone, the metal needs to be cherry red before the rod will melt. You would have to put the anvil in the forge to get it that hot in use.
By all reports, the HF anvil is a massive PoS, I would be worried about any arc welding on it.

Personally I would braze it because I hate stick welding and love gas welding.

 

[SE18]

thanks; it was impluse buy and didn't do homework, realize POS; preciate

 

[RJSakowski]

I got this cheap ass HF anvil that I want to add a 1/2" steel plate to. You can see I drilled out and filed the 7/8" hardie hole to match the anvil. So 3 questions.

would the 1/2" be thick enough?

should I use nickle rod? (I've got a heavy duty WWII era Marquette stick welder). Reason nickle is b/c the anvil is die cast

or, could I just use my oxyacy torch and braze it?

If I use the nickle rod, I'm thinking I will need to preheat the entire anvil and plate to around 600F before welding to prvent stress and cracking

If I use the torch, I'm thinking I don't need to preheat.

The thing is, the anvil will be hosting some hot metal and I wonder if the braze might come undone?

(the round hole in the photo will be filled in)

Thanks

View attachment 116496

I have welded a new steel plate on an anvil some thirty year ago but that was a wrought iron anvil. I believe that the HF anvils are cast iron. The plate that I used was cut from a piece of semi leaf spring and was about a 1/2" thick. It has held up well over the years and I still use it fairly often.


I welded the plate with a forge welding process which brought the anvil and plate to a welding heat and then a pair of us proceeded the hammer weld the face to the base. To prevent scale from contaminating the weld, I had stick welded the entire perimeter to seal the interface. That seal was ground off later and I made the hardy a nd pritchel holes afterward.

Welding the perimeter alone will probably cause problems down the line as the central portion of the face is floating. Hammering will eventually distort the face. Since you have cast iron, if it were me, I would braze. With proper fluxing and pre-tinning with braze, you should be able to get the braze to flow in to the interior of the interface. It will not be a durable as a welded interface but may serve you until you get a better anvil.

When we did the forge welding we set up a large coal fired forge .. I had made a carrier for the anvil from two pieces of pipe tied togeter with tie bolts and grasping the anvil at the waist. This allowed two people to manipulate it in the fire and carry it out for striking.

Bob

 

[brino]

There was another site that referred to the low-quality, mass-produced ones as "anvil shaped objects" because they resemble the real thing, but do not act the same.
One person built up an anvil from thick plate.....I'll have to see if I can find a link.....
To me, if the manufacturer paints the "horn" then obviously they have no idea how an anvil is used or what it is used for!!!!

Now that said, I do own some! I have two little guys that act as spacers on the hydraulic press; they do the job (yes the horns are blue!).
I looked for a big anvil for a long time (auctions, tool houses, etc.) until I finally bought one off a local blacksmith.
(My wife got me a weekend blacksmith course for my birthday, what a fantastic woman!)

To me it's fine to buy lower quality tools as long as you know it, pay accordingly, and set reasonable expectations for it's use.
Often the low-quality, mass produced items is all you can find.

I believe:
-either way (arc or braze) you should preheat the anvil over charcoal, that much metal will suck the heat away from the zone you want hot
-I doubt you'd have any trouble with the brazing coming apart due to temperature during use
-with reasonable expectations this anvil will last you quite a while; Weygers writes about using various items as anvils from an old engine block to rail-road track:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Modern-Blacksmith-Alexander-Weygers/dp/0898158966
-work out a way to handle, lift, turn and position the work _BEFORE_ you get it hot!!

for arc:
-also consider a slow cool, in my experience cast changes rapidly with temperature and is just as likely to "ping" and crack during cool-down
-this may affect the hardness of your top plate

Good luck, and please let us know how it works out.

-brino

 

[Wreck™Wreck]

This may seem like a silly question but what does one actually use an anvil for in the year 2015?
Aside from separating stubborn large taper shank tools that is .

 

[RJSakowski]

I had never bother to harden the face on my anvil after welding. I was concerned about warping or cracking. As it was, the horn on my anvil developed a crack, most likely a cold shut during the original manufacturing process. The soft steel face has held up well. As long as you follow the blacksmith's rule of not striking cold iron, you should be fine. Even at that, I have worked plenty of cold iron on mine without detriment.

If you do want to harden the face, the way they used to do this was by placing the anvil upside down in a shallow pan of water. Use yoke that I described and move it around to allow the water to reach all parts of the face. Afterwards, it should be tempered probably best don with a rosebud tip on your OA torch.

Bob

 

[RJSakowski]

This may seem like a silly question but what does one actually use an anvil for in the year 2015?

Amazing things can be done with a forge, an anvil, a vise, and simple hand tools like hammers, tongs, punches, and chisels. Machining a pair of tongs for example would be a complicated undertaking. A blacksmith can pop a pair out in about a hours time. A machinist wouldn't be able to make a pair of box joint tongs whereas a blacksmith can easily
make them. I wouldn't want to have to make a horseshoe by machining.

Machining is about removing metal. Welding is about joining metal. Blacksmithing is about moving metal.

 

[RJSakowski]

The thing is, the anvil will be hosting some hot metal and I wonder if the braze might come undone?

No way will you ever get the interior hot enough to affect the braze. I would be more concerned about shock from hammer blows.

 

[John Hasler]

This may seem like a silly question but what does one actually use an anvil for in the year 2015?

Last week I rebuilt the starter for my 8N. One of the irritating things about the design is that the screw that clamps the sheet-metal cover for the brushes is next to the block. This makes it even harder to get the starter out (getting an 8N starter out is a PITA) and makes it impossible to get that cover off with the starter in. The cover is notched for the battery stud so it can't just be rotated. So I flattened the part on the anvil, rebent the tabs for the screw on the edge of the anvil, and rebent the cover inside-out using the horn of the anvil. Now when I put that cover on the clamping screw is on the outside.

I use my anvil just about any time I need to pound on something. I just wish I had a bigger, less used-up one.